I have been humbled!

Now, here’s a memory….

Deed and I had been using Westport (Ireland) as our base while exploring the wild west of County Mayo. We were scheduled to be there for one week featuring hiking the cliff paths along Achill Island. 

While hiking a cliff path early one Sunday morning we were in our, ‘feed your souls prior to breakfast mode,” when Deed fell and cut her mouth on a rather small rock slightly exposed from the gentle cliffside geriatric path. Or was it a rather large boulder on the string-like rock strewn Devil’s path? Interpretation varies with the storyteller, but moving along, Deed was in pain. Her lip was cut, and she expressed an immediate need for some possible dentistry. 

Deed’s needs are my commands. 

Racing back to Westport I immediately sought advice from the hotel manager who speedily called his friend Sam, a dentist, who opened his office straightaway, which also served as his house, and had Deed seated in his 1930’s museum worthy dental chair. 

There was no time to ponder the similarities between his office and the one on displayed at the Smithsonian entitled, “Early American Dentistry, circa 1908” because the dentist was humming his way through his examination and had immediately started to apply his remedy. Over the next hour he continued to hum and periodically tossed in an, “I’ll be dammed.” 

Deed with her mouth full of this and that was rendered speechless. My speechlessness I attributed to horror. 

Finally, he said, “Well, let’s see how that works.” 

With that he led us into the waiting room which served double duty as his living room and seamlessly transitioned from a dentist to our host in Westport. 

Deed tried to ask some questions about what he had done but her face was so numb and frozen that I quickly realized that authority had suddenly passed to me. 

You know, it’s really difficult to have a professional conversation with your dentist when he’s seated crossed legged on a sofa in an old sweater eating a cookie and asking if we cared for more tea. Deed was still in her slobbering stage of her post-operation recovery, so the task of eating cookies and tea fell to me. It being long past noon and still without breakfast I asked Sam for some more cookies and tea. Sam, a bachelor, had a good supply of cookies.  

Deed somehow combined slobbering with glaring. A neat trick. 

Still, I tried to turn the conversation back to the health and care of his patient but somehow we always returned to rocks, cliffs, beaches, and occasionally there was some talk about stamps. 

Finally, when the tea pot and the cookie plates were empty and we were at the door I said in a very loud voice, too loud for his little doorway. “But what do we owe you? Will you take a check? Will you take a card?” 

“Oh no,” he said, “Irish paperwork for a foreign traveler takes hours, and even then I won’t likely get anything. But here’s what you can do if it’s not too much bother. Send me a handful of old stamps.” 

And with that we said our goodbyes. 

“What a most pleasant fellow” I said to Deed as we left. I’m still not certain about what she said. Oh well. Water under the bridge. 

Soon after we arrived home we scheduled an appointment for Deed with our dentist’s receptionist asking for the first available opening. The receptionist scheduled an appointment for three weeks out. Deed explained the situation and emphatically stressed that she needed an appointment immediately. The receptionist was most understanding and confirmed that our appointment would be in three weeks.

In three weeks we met with Doctor Mark Anthony and his two interns and after a brief consultation Dr. Anthony agreed that the surgery done in Ireland was of the highest standard and that Deed was very fortunate to have had such a skilled team perform the surgery. 

We agreed 

Dr. Anthony’s consultation cost $358. 

Now back to the stamps. Sam asked for some stamps. Deed was determined to send him some stamps.

Deed spent the next few days searching through desk drawers, old shoeboxes, and the backs of closets, gathering a small collection of colorful stamps from various countries and eras. Some were faded at the edges, others had the crispness of never having seen a letter, but all were chosen with care, but in the end Deed hardly had a handful, and anyway a handful was not what she had in mind for Sam.  

We live in a small college town with a small local paper whose motto is, “All the news that was fit to print last week.” However to the paper’s credit on the bottom left column of page 2 there is a little community filler with a phone number where citizens can ask the community for help. Deed called for help. She told her story about Sam. 

There are many benefits about living in a college community and one being that people travel and another is that there are people from all over the world. 

Bags of stamps began to arrive at our door. Then more bags arrived. Thank heaven the newspaper only ran Deed’s request one day. 

So how many stamps did Deed send to Sam? 

We never counted, but my best guess would be about 20-30,000. 

Soon Sam replied, “I have been humbled!” 

What a nice man. What a great dentist.